Metal sorting systems are used to separate materials that have a mixture of magnetic ferrous materials from non-magnetic waste materials. Other sorting systems sort nonferrous metals from nonmetallic waste. In either case, the streams of material to be sorted are placed on conveyor belts and are exposed to magnetic fields that affect different kinds of material in the material streams different such that as the material stream is expelled from the end of the conveyor belt, the expulsion trajectory of different material types is different based on how they interact with the magnetic field at the end of the conveyor belt. It has been found that in any type of sorting system described above, that incorporating a splitter to physically delineate the travel path between the magnetic ferrous materials and the non-magnetic material significantly improves the quality of the separation. However, debris tends to accumulate on the splitters which obstructs the flow of materials on either side of the splitter. The typical solution to this is that the splitters have to be periodically cleaned of debris which often times requires a shutdown of the processing equipment and is labor intensive. What is presented are several embodiments of self-cleaning splitters that operate while the equipment is in use and requires little labor to operate.